History in the making

Students got a tour of the Pagan-Fletcher House led by Gabe Parish, left, while making their documentary.

Courtesy Ilissa Epstein

Hundreds of parents, friends, teachers and residents came out in support of District 30’s Quest students as they unveiled their documentary, “Inside Valley Stream,” on May 22 in the Central High School auditorium.

While the people in attendance may have been supporting a student or teacher associated with the documentary, it was safe to say that just about everyone in the audience learned something as well. “Inside Valley Stream” is a documentary about the history of Valley Stream — how it got its name and some fun facts about the people who made history there.

Ilissa Epstein is about to wrap up her first year as Quest teacher, educating advanced students in grades 3-6. She and her 130 children from Shaw Avenue School, Forest Road School and Clear Stream Avenue School worked for months on the documentary and were happy with end result.

“My favorite part was learning about our town because I’ve been here such a long time but I barely knew anything about it,” said Gregorios Siamos, a fifth grader at Shaw Avenue.

Shaw Avenue sixth grader Alesha Gutierrez said she enjoyed learning how to make a documentary and found it interesting that the Green Acres Mall used to be Curtiss Airfield from 1929-33. “I felt proud of myself and I felt like my family was proud of me and I was very excited to see it,” she said after the viewing.

Prior to the screening of their documentary, students from the three schools explained the project to the audience.

“At the beginning of the year, we truly didn’t know what to expect,” said Forest Road student Isabel Planes. “We didn’t really understand what a documentary was and we didn’t know that much about Valley Stream except that it is where we live.”

The students put in a great deal of time and effort to learn how to make a documentary and even more time going around Valley Stream to gather information. “As you will see in our documentary, Valley Stream has drastically changed within the last 200 years,” said Aji Singh of Clear Stream Avenue. “From an empty farmland at its start, to what wenow know as a highly developed, multicultural, suburban town, clearly we have come a long way.”